Valorant Episode 3 ranked changes promises to make matchmaking system “up to 50%” better

Valorant has officially been out for over a year, but player’s issue with the ranked matchmaking system hasn’t gone away. Luckily, changes will be coming to that when Episode 3: Reflection goes live.

On June 21 Riot devs held a livestream to discuss what changes were coming to Valorant for Episode 3: Reflection, and confirmed that the game’s matchmaking system will be getting much-needed update.

Since Valorant launched a ranked mode, players have complained that matches often feel “one-sided” due in part to how the matchmaking system distributes players of different skill. Now, devs say they’ll be changing the system to hopefully fix this come Episode 3.

During the livestream, Jon ‘EvrMoar’ Walker, a designer on the Valorant Competitive team, explained how the game has basically outgrown the ranked system that was originally introduced.

“We had a system that actually, based on number of games played, would adjust your MMR up to 100 games played, then it would cap you out. It was just to get people into their correct rank really quickly,” Walker explained. “Now we’ve been out for a year and have all those players, we don’t need it. So we’re actually going to turn that system off”

Big news already from Jon, but he wasn’t done. After looking at the old system devs apparently found a way to increase the accuracy of matchmaking by up to 50%, and that change will be going live with Reflection.

“We found by reworking the system and turning it off, we could increase matchmaking accuracy by up to 50% in the lower ranks,” Walker continued. “So it should be a very noticeable difference where all the ranks — the high ranks, but especially the low ranks — are going to see a lot more accurate matchmaking.”

This means you’ll finally have more of a chance to get matched up with and against opponents that are actually closer to your skill level.

The best part is that we don’t have long to wait for Episode 3: Act 1 to begin at all, as Riot will be dropping the update on June 22. For a look at all of the other changes coming when the next Act begins, be sure to check out our official hub.